James Still
| birth_place = La Fayette, Alabama, United States | death_date = April | death_place = Hazard, Kentucky, United States | occupation = Poet, novelist and folklorist | nationality = | ethnicity = | citizenship = | education = | alma_mater = Lincoln Memorial University Vanderbilt University University of Illinois]] | period = | genre = | subject = | movement = | notableworks = River of Earth | spouse = | partner = | children = | relatives = J. Alex Still (father) Lonie (Lindsey) Still (mother) | influences = | influenced = | awards = | signature = | website = http://faculty.colostate-pueblo.edu/sandy.hudock/jshome.html | portaldisp = }} James Still (July 16, 1906 - April 28, 2001) was an American poet, novelist, and folklorist. He lived most of his life in a log house along the Dead Mare Branch of Little Carr Creek, Knott County, Kentucky. Life Youth Still’s mother, Lonie, was 16 when she moved to Alabama due to a tornado destroying the family home. His father, J. Alex Still, was a horse doctor with no formal training. Still was born July 16, 1906 near Lafayette, Alabama. Still was considered a quiet child but a hard worker. He, along with his nine siblings, worked the family farm. They farmed cotton, sugar cane, soybeans and corn. At the age of seven, Still began grade school. He found greater interest not in the school text books but at home where there was an edition of the Cyclopedia of Universal Knowledge. He became enriched with philosophy, physics, and the great British poets, Shakespeare and Keats. Education After graduating from high school, Still attended Lincoln Memorial University of Harrogate, Tennessee. He worked at the rock quarry in the afternoons and as a library janitor in the evenings. He would often sleep at the library after spending the night reading countless literature. Upon graduation in 1929, he began graduate work at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. While at Vanderbilt, he became involved in a controversial miner strike in Wilder, Tennessee. The miners were starving due to holding the picket line; Still delivered a truckload of food and clothing for the miners. Still graduated with an M.A. in English in 1930. He later completed additional graduate work at the University of Illinois. Career Still tried various professions including the Civil Service Corps, Bible salesman, and even a stint picking cotton in Texas. His friend Don West — a poet and civil rights activist, among other things — offered Still a job organizing recreation programs for a Bible school in Knott co., Kentucky. Still accepted the position but soon became a volunteer librarian at the Hindman Settlement School. Knott co. would become Still’s lifelong home. Still moved into a 2-story log house once occupied by a crafter of dulcimers, Jethro Amburgey. He would remain there till his death. There, he began writing his masterpiece, River of Earth. It was published February 5, 1940. Still served as a sergeant in the U.S. Army in World War II, and was stationed in Egypt in 1944. Still went on to publish a few collections of poetry and short stories, a juvenile novel, and a compilation of Appalachian local color he collected over the years. For many years he was the creative force behind the Morehead Writers' Workshop at nearby Morehead State University, where he taught literature during the 1960s. His children's book "Jack and the Wonderbeans" was adapted for the stage by the Lexington Children's Theatre in 1992. Still participated in a performance, reading a portion of the book to open the show. He died April 28, 2001, at the age of 94. Writing River of Earth is a discussion of change in Appalachia, depicted as the struggles of a family trying to survive by either subsisting off the land or entering the coal mines of the Cumberland Plateau in the reaches of eastern Kentucky. This tension is depicted in the tension between Brack and Alpha Baldridge. Alpha Baldridge longs for settled solidity. “Forever I’ve wanted to set us down in a lone spot, a place certain and enduring, with room to swing arm and elbow, . . . . So many places we’ve lived—the far side of one mine camp and next the slag pile of another. I’m longing to set me down shorely and raise my chaps proper (50–51).” Conversely, her husband Brack is committed to the mines and answers her as the family provider: “It was never meant for a body to be full content on the face of this earth. Against my wont it is to be treading the camps, but its bread I’m hunting, regular bread with a mite of grease on it. To make and provide, it’s the only trade I know, and I work willing (51).” His version of stability is perhaps more transitory than hers. She longs to see things grow of a season, whether gardens or children; he looks for the high-return of mine work, despite the dangers (which are not major factors in the book) and the irregularity of the work. She willing to trade the sentence of living from hand to mouth through the year for the security of a personal place; he is willing to endure famine for the short seasons of feasting that mine work allows. The perspectives of both characters represent the dead-end choices of Appalachians who chose to remain in the hills. Recognition Still received the Southern Author's Award for Rivers of Earth (shared with Thomas Wolfe for Wolfe's work You Can’t Go Home Again). Publications Poetry *''Hounds on the Mountain''. New York: Viking, 1937. *''River of Earth: The poem, and other poems''. Lexington, KY: King Library Press, 1983. *''The Wolfpen Poems''. Berea, KY: Berea College Press, 1986. *''From the Mountain, from the Valley: New and collected poems'' (edited by Ted Olson). Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2001. Novels *''Hounds on the Mountain''. New York: Viking, 1937. * River of Earth. New York: Viking, 1940; Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 1978. *''On Troublesome Creek''. New York: Viking, 1941. * Sporty Creek: A novel about an Appalachian boyhood. New York: Putnam, 1977. * The Run for the Elbertas. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 1980. * Chinaberry. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2011. Short fiction * Pattern of a Man, and other stories. Lexington, KY: Gnomon, 1976. * The Hills Remember: The complete short stories of James Still. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2012. Non-fiction *''The Wolfpen Notebooks: A record of Appalachian life''. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 1991. *''James Still: Portrait of the artist as a boy in Alabama''. Lexington, KY: King Library Press, 1998. *''James Still: In interviews, oral histories, and memoirs'' (edited by Ted Olson). Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2009. Juvenile *''Way Down Yonder on Troublesome Creek: Appalachian riddles & rusties'' (illustrated by Janet McCaffery). New York: Putnam, 1974 **also published as The Wolfpen Rusties: Appalachian riddles and gee-haw whimmy-diddles. New York: Putnam, 1975 **also published as Rusties and Riddles & Gee-Haw Whimmy-Diddles. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 1989. *''Jack and the Wonder Beans'' (illustrated by Margot Tomes). New York: Putnam 1977. *''Rusties and riddles & gee-haw Whimmy-Diddles'' (llustrated by Janet McCaffery). Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 1989. *''An Appalachian Mother Goose. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 1998. *''Sporty Creek. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 1999. Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.Search results = au:James Still, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center. Web, Apr. 28, 2013. See also *List of U.S. poets References *Appalachian Heritage, Fall 2010 issue, in which Still is the featured author; a number of articles discuss his life and work, and previously unpublished prose and poetry by Still is presented. *Crum, Claude Lafie. (2007). River of Words: James Still's Literary Legacy. Wind Publications. *Olson, Ted, and Kathy H. Olson, eds. (2007). James Still: Critical Essays on the Dean of Appalachian Literature (ISBN 0-7864-3076-1). *Olson, Ted, ed. (2009). James Still in Interviews, Oral Histories and Memoirs. (ISBN 978-0-7864-3698-9). Notes External links ;Poems *"Heritage" ;Audio *[http://www.ket.org/cgi-bin/cheetah/watch_video.pl?nola=KJSRE_000000&template=_itv James Still's River of Earth ''], documentary about the book and Still, a 1997 KET production. ;Books *James Still at Amazon.com ;About *"James Still, Appalachian poet, dies", obituary, Lexington ''Herald-Leader *Featured author: James Still at Appalachian Heritage. *"James Still: Alabamian, Transplanted Knott Countian" at Appalachian Heritage (.PDF) *James Still Homepage at Colorado State University *"The Poetry of James Still's Days and Ways]" at Asheville Poetry Review Category:1906 births Category:2001 deaths Category:People from LaFayette, Alabama Category:American poets Category:Guggenheim Fellows Category:Writers from Kentucky Category:People from Knott County, Kentucky Category:Lincoln Memorial University alumni Category:20th-century poets Category:American novelists Category:English-language poets Category:Poets Category:American Poets Laureate